Parable of the Hunted
by Tigris Euphrates
Summary: A short story about feeling lost, misplaced, and all alone in a strange world.


# PARABLE OF THE HUNTED

By Dasha Ariel Clancey

A parable of Jessica Yui and Dasha Ariel Clancey

I think Elisa, different, as she is, wishes just as we do.

_*A silent tear of loss and mourning falls, shed from the ache of a heart trapped within iron walls of its mere human body. *_

***

One cool morning, before the crystal sunrise would peak above the mountains of Corinth, a single figure rose out of the bushes, head peeled back, as she calls out to the morning. Her roar filled the valley and her entire frame with the adrenaline euphoria. She took her battle in again anew, sizing up her opponent.

Talons unfurled, she hissed at the creature. She would NOT be beaten again! This terrible monster would not take her if she could help it!

The hiss of air was heard, and a sudden stinging she felt in her arm. Snarling in fury, eyes enraged, she tore the dart from her fur.

The sleepiness began to overcome her.

No! She could not let herself be taken again! She was the last of her kind! She had to survive if her kind were to live on!

She stumbled, as she tried to muster the energy to spread her wings and glide away. Instead, she found herself rolling in the grass, waning toward the beckoning darkness.

***

She awoke in chains.

Dizzily, her vision unclear, she tried to understand how she had allowed herself to be chained. She had no energy.

She could feel the tap pumping strange substances into her blood with every sluggish heartbeat.

She could hear her breathing, harsh, and shallow. Heartbeats were slow and throbbing, and audible in the room... Yet, somehow there was another heart audible, hurting like hers. She opened her eyes weakly, and saw the vague blur of... another strapped and chained to the table across from her?

***

Upon awakening again, she first became aware of a warm sensation beneath her. Her wings lay between her and it. As she came to, she found herself in a brightly lit room. There was a prevailing odor here, sweat, rot, and staleness. She winced from the bright light, and began to stir.

The sounds oohs and aahs filled the air.

As she stood up, she discovered what she had been laying on.

She and another gargoyle had been thrown atop on another haphazardly. When she had moved, the other had stirred.

A male gargoyle, she suddenly realized! She had never seen any sign of another in all the jungles of the Amazons, until now.When he saw her, he suddenly scrambled his feet under him, flared his wings, and held his paws defensively before him, talons threatening.

The voices oohed louder.

"Calmly, my brother! I am not your enemy!" she tried to explain to him. She perceived that he was trembling. She folded her wings, trying to appear less threatening. He cowered into one corner, sweating.

"P - please! Lu - leave me alone!" he stuttered.

She knelt down beside him, paws held out in greeting. "I mean thee no harm. I am Auriana. What is your name?"

"Reiga." he replied, reserved. "Are you from my land of the Amazons?"

"Aye... but I have never seen any others before thee."

"I... always thought I was the last." he replied.

She touched his paw. For a moment, they were one.

The oohs and aahs in their ears peaked once more.

The female turned about, to see whom it was who made that sound. She found herself to be in a prison of glass bars, with monsters all around the outside looking in at her, gawking with mock amazement.

She beat against the bars with all hers strength, but they were harder than all stone or steel. She could not escape.

Her male companion's breathing had turned heavy. She turned to see him rubbing his shoulders in pain. "What is wrong?"

"Hurts... all over..."

He suddenly convulsed. Time almost seemed to slow down as his fur, striped and brilliant as hers, began to fall out to be replaced by pale skin, his wings and tail died away, and fifth fingers and toes appeared. He cried out in pain, and became nothing more than one of the monsters from all around her, lying on the floor of her cage.

Horrified, she tried to help him. He could not stand, but could only cry. What had happened to him? What had those monsters done to him?

Then she began to feel it too. With all her strength she fought it, but soon it ate away at her, and turning her into a pale, weak little monster like all the others.

***

As Auriana walked from school each night with her books under her arms, she dreaded coming home to a fighting family, want, greed, envy, and malice. She would look at her face in the mirror. She always seemed to see something more there. It was almost as if she could touch her face, and feel more than her eyes saw.

That strange little nerd boy she had seen in the halls at school that day had struck her the same way. That kid, Reiga, he almost seemed to mean something important.

Though how, or what these things meant to her always seemed to fall from her grasp before she could understand them. Was there something out there that she didn't know? Could it be possible that she had once been something more?

She would sigh, cast the thought aside, and take up her gun.Tonight they were going hunting for gargoyles again, and she didn't want to be late.


End file.
